OBITUARY
Paul Christophersen: a largeness of vision
DAVID CHRISTOPHERSEN writes
about the remarkable life of his father,
whose death on 30th December 1999 at
88, peacefully at home in Cambridge,
England, brought to an end one of the
last living links to the tradition of
analytical grammar and philosophy
associated with the great Danish
Anglicist Otto Jespersen.
Already as an undergraduate at Copenhagen
University in Denmark, Paul Christophersen's
correspondence with Otto Jespersen and com-
ments on his ideas led to collaboration with
Jespersen on his monumental and multivol-
ume Modern English Grammar and to early
international recognition by 1939 with the
publication by Oxford University Press and
Munksgaard of his Copenhagen doctoral thesis
on the development and use of the article in
English.
This was, however, only the beginning of a
career that was to concern itself increasingly
with the sociolinguistic and psychological
implications of bilingualism and biculturalism
- he drew from his own vivid and occasionally
painful experiences of this - as well as related
questions of language planning and teaching
and the very subsidiary role, as he saw it,
that applied linguistics should play in these
matters.
His origins were socially humble: a family of
small-holders from the island of Zealand. His
gifted father's formal education ended after a
few years at a village school, supplemented
later by evening classes. His mother had no for-
mal education. At twelve his father died leav-
ing his mother, four siblings (one crippled by
polio) and himself facing an uncertain future.
Consequently he began part-time work as a
messenger and delivery boy. A photo just
before his father's death shows Paul with an
intricately carpented model sailing ship, about
three feet long, a bark made by himself, com-
plete with sails and rigging, capable of navigat-
ing Copenhagen's city ponds, and which still
stands in his library in Cambridge. A year later
English Today 63, Vol. 16, No. 3 (July 2000). Printed in the United Kingdom © 2000 Cambridge University Press
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he was planning a comparative grammar of the
classical and modern languages he was learn-
ing in school, noting - this before the days of
radio - that his English teacher had acquired a
cockney accent and beginning his study of arti-
ficial languages such as Ido and Novial - suc-
cessors to Esperanto. His notebooks from this
period show his solutions to chess problems in
Ido and record his reading of imaginative liter-
ature (translations of Andersen) in that
language. A timetable pencilled in the back of
an Old Norse reader studied in his Danish
classes records the education the Danish state
was providing free of charge: two classical and
three modern languages, science subjects and
maths.
Christophersen in
English Today
Christophersen, Paul. ET8, Oct 86. 'A history
of the plupluperfect'
— £711, Jul 87. 'In defence of RF - Received
Pronunciation defended as the standard
accent for British and European English
— ET15, Jul 88. '"Native speakers" and
world English' - What is a 'native language'
and what is a 'native speaker' of English?
Do the terms need to be revised?
— ET17, Jan 89. "The cohorts are coming' -
new meanings for cohort
— ET19, Jul 89. "The prescriptive bugbear' -
comments on Fairman in ET17
— ET23, Jul 90. 'The Germanic legacy1 - an
assessment of what English has inherited
from Anglo-Saxon, Low German and the
Scandinavian languages
— ET27, Jul 91. 'A bilingual Denmark' - the
state of Denmark and other small countries
when every citizen speaks English as well
as the national language
— ET31, Jul 92. '"Native" models and
foreign learners' - a consideration of
'nativeness', 'foreignness', expertise and
language allegiance
— ET33, Jan 93. Two sound changes in
England' - a review of Anthea E. Sullivan,
Sound Change in Progress (University of
Exeter Press, 1992)
 In 1939, he received a scholarship to study in
Cambridge and, following the Nazi invasion of
Denmark, he found himself stranded in a small
college (Corpus) where courtesy, gentleness
and refinement of spirit won his gratitude and
effected an emotional maturing in him
expressed entirely in English and in terms of
English values. Looking back at his published
work from the thirties, he felt its English style
was a 'suit that didn't quite fit', though it seems
elegant to the casual observer and attracted
attention for decades. (A Japanese translation
of "The Articles' appeared in 1958.) On his own
admission a large part of his identity and loy-
alty had become English.
The seeds had been planted for his reflec-
tions on bilingualism expressed later in his
Penguin book of 1973, Second Language Learn-
ing and elsewhere: Bilingualism can imply not
only possessing two cultures and identities, but
also sometimes, according to circumstances,
greater psychological and linguistic maturity in
the second-learnt language
Emotive concepts such as 'native speaker'
and 'mother tongue', belonging to an era of
romantic nationalism, tended in his view to fal-
sify the reality of language learning and per-
sonal development, as identity is not fixed at
birth and the individual has a choice. For years
he was to document the countless individuals
whose second language and identity was the
dominant one, often for creative purposes,
from the Roman poet Ennius (with whose
statement that he had 'three hearts', one for
each of his languages, Greek, Oscan and Latin,
he deeply sympathized) to the German roman-
tic poet Chamisso, who began life as a French
aristocrat.
A language community, therefore, being a
freely entered cultural community, not a
group of passport-holders or people with a
specific genetic inheritance, has no nationalis-
tic claim of ownership to a language, but
rather a custodial responsibility (especially in
the case of a world language like English), for
its stability and precision. The latter point he
was to develop forcefully in recent years,
being critical of the confusion that led some
linguists and lay-people to assume that
because a linguistic scientist's role is quite
properly the description of linguistic phenom-
ena, policy-makers should not prescribe poli-
cies affecting language.
After completing a Cambridge doctorate on
medieval balladry and a strenuous two years
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at the BBC, broadcasting to occupied Denmark
in Danish, he became a research assistant at
The Royal Institute of International Affairs,
where special permission had to be granted
for a Dane to have access to Foreign Office
materials. A close friend, T. E. Utley, who was
privy to the discussions that led to this permis-
sion, was tickled by the unusual logic of the
clinching argument: the assurance that 'one
could not hear that Paul Christophersen was
not English'.
After the war he was sceptical about too
cloistered an academic life and had an idealis-
tic desire to be a bridge-builder in the new
world order. He participated in UNESCO's
founding conference and preparatory commis-
sion, as part of the Danish delegation and later
as Danish representative. In 1946, hoping to
be of service to two nations, he reluctantly
accepted the chair of English at Copenhagen
University, his heart and identity really being
in England. Fully intending to become a
British citizen after the war, this crown
appointment now made a change of citizen-
ship inappropriate and impossible. His oldest
Danish friend having been executed by the
Germans during the war, stifled by the cur-
rency and travel restrictions of post-war
Europe, lonely and feeling he needed more
pioneering work, he resigned, amidst public
consternation, in 1948 and accepted the chair
in English at Ibadan University in colonial
Nigeria.
He arrived in a converted bomber at Kano
airport and saw on the airport building 'a line
of scraggy-necked vultures' and years later he
was still to recall the excitement and anticipa-
tion he felt. Ibadan had gifted and motivated
undergraduates, including the future novelist
Chinua Achebe - 'the best were the equal of
any Europeans' he noted - and this period saw
the beginning of hisfifty-yearmarriage to his
English wife Peggy, the appearance of his study
of medieval Anglo-Scandinavian ballad rela-
tions The Ballad of Sir Aldingar (OUP, 1953)
and, after his departure from Africa, of An
English Phonetics Course (Longman, 1958),
material he had used with Africans but which
found a wider market than expected. An Indian
edition is to appear later this year.
A deeply emotional man, whose reaction to a
poem or piece of music could be gauged by his
trembling lip and eyes filling with tears, his gen-
tleness was tested on returning to Scandinavia
and a chair at Oslo, where British attitudes, he
ENGLISH TODAY 63 October 2000
 discovered, seemed at times to be disturbingly classic, as well as a stream of learned articles
condescending to her continental well-wishers on subjects as diverse as 'International Con-
and certainly not, he felt, in Britain's best inter- tacts in Carolingian Europe', The Germanic
ests, culturally or politically. The colonial atti- Heritage', 'Jespersen and Second-Language
tude of one or two British representatives in Learning', and 'Native Speakers and World
Norway called into question his own public- English' covering areas of study too numerous
spirited ideal of being a bridge-builder between to list in the present memoir. A selection of
Britain and Scandinavia, but undoubtedly these papers was published in book form
added refinement and sharpness to his thoughts shortly before his death, entitled A Linguist's
on bilingualism and cultural identity. His son Credo (Rask, 1999).
well remembers consulting his father at this As meticulously courteous as he was logical,
time about an essay for his Norwegian school he suffered in a world where not all were as
about the vikings; from his lucid but melan- honourable in those respects as he was. He
choly explanation of the Scandinavian inva- regarded himself as a failure, feeling his radical
sions of England it was clear who his father's questioning of common assumptions held by
hero was: King Alfred, the man of action and linguists as well as lay-people had fallen largely
refined learning. But, this admiration for on deaf ears. D
English gentleness was tinged with sadness.
A Linguist's Credo, a collection of Paul Christo-
However, despite his difficulties he had phersen's more recent papers, was published in
warm feelings for Norway and appreciated his 1999 by Odense University Press, as RASK Supple-
Norwegian colleagues, one of whom, A. O. ment Vol. 9. DDK 200.00. ISBN 87-7838-405-2.
Sandved, collaborated with him on their jointly <press@forlag.ou.dk>
published Advanced English Grammar (Macmil-
lan, 1969). Oslo's Aftenposten newspaper has
recalled the creative energy he brought to
English studies at Oslo and more widely in Nor- A Danish English gentleman
way: 'His spirit hovered over the waters and of the old school
still does to some extent.'
The Oslo appointment was punctuated by a Knowing Paul Christophersen and
visiting professorship at Atlanta's Emory Uni- being able to regard him as a good
versity and followed in 1969 by eight years at professional friend was a privilege
the University of Ulster, where Northern Irish that emerged from editing English
hospitality made up for many past frustrations. Today and living in Cambridge.
In his inaugural lecture on receiving a personal I am glad indeed to have been
chair at Ulster he managed to sum up some of instrumental in making possible his
his aims. He entitled the lecture "Settling Hoti's nine contributions to ET, as listed in
Business", a reference to Browning's poem the box on p. 3. Talking with him
about a scholar whose life's work was the eluci- was always absorbing, but at times
dation of the accentuation of two classical darkened by his abiding sense of
Greek words, Ho and Ti. betrayal by a British cultural
establishment that failed to
'I want to add only one final thought,' he appreciate his commitment to
says, 'Browning's grammarian, after a lifetime British ideals. His achievement and
of patient toil, after settling Hoti's business and his unique combination of
other linguistic problems, was buried appropri- professorships in EFL (Denmark),
ately on a high mountain where "stars come ESL (Nigeria) and ENL (Northern
and go". He was concerned in his life with little Ireland) universities were entirely
things, almost trivial things, but saw them remarkable in an age of turmoil and
largely.' transformation. He won more
Widely read in five languages, Paul Christo- victories than he knew.
phersen had a largeness of vision that contin-
ued until his death. On retirement, he went to Tom McArthur
the Arab world to teach, began the study of
Arabic, published a translation of a Danish

OBITUARY

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